DigitalMarketingSkillsYouNeedifYouWantaBiggerSalary:2017Report

Evolving customer expectations and fast-paced market environment set the bar high for business owners. To stay competitive they need to reach their audience via all the possible communication channels with the right content and just at the right time. Thus, more businesses prioritize marketing efforts, investing in versatile and innovative marketing strategies.

As a result, the demand for skilled marketing professionals has outstripped the supply. The insights delivered by McKinley Marketing Partners’ hiring survey further prove the point:

The demand for marketing talent far exceeds the supply in key areas.

44 percent of companies plan to hire more marketers in 2017 than they did the previous year (up from 28 percent).

Over a half of marketing hires this year will be digital: 56% of respondents intend to hire specialists with digital marketing expertise. Yet, only 24% of the professionals with the relative skills are currently looking for a job.

While the demand for digital marketing professionals clearly outstrips available supply, there is a proven way to attract the best talent: Offer a bigger salary. Namely, 45% of marketing professionals will consider switching a job for a higher paying one. Yet, switching a job is not the only way to secure a better salary. Expanding your skillset is another great way to get wage increase.

Surviving the Talent Gap in Digital Marketing: It’s Time to Learn New Skills and Polish the Old Ones

If you are one of the lucky ones, having dipped your toes into the digital marketing ocean, you probably know that the environment is quite competitive. The only way to stay relevant and grow as a professional is to constantly acquire new skills and polish the existing ones.

What is more, skills mean money. On average, digital marketers make less than, say, software developers. For instance, a digital marketing manager in the USA - one of the highest paying countries for digital marketers - makes around $64K per year, while, say, an average Java developer enjoys annual compensation of $90K.

Thus, picking up a new skill or two will not only make you a desirable employee, but also reduce the gap between digital marketing and the highest-paying jobs, if not close it at all.

How Much Do Digital Marketers Make? The Salary Overview Across the Top-Paying Countries, by Skill

To help you find a competitive advantage, we analyzed the highest-paying skills in the countries where digital marketers enjoy the highest salaries overall. The results are presented below.

The USA

A median digital marketing manager’s salary in the US equals to $63,560. The skills that positively affect a marketer’s income are:

Yet, this research can not provide 100% accurate data: The salary often depends on a number of aspects rather than simply skillset. In this regard, the McKinley research mentioned above provides a valuable information on the digital marketing skills currently in demand. According to the survey, digital advertising, content creation and curation, and content strategy top the list of the most in-demand digital marketing skills.

Another survey conducted by Online Marketing Institute clearly indicates the talent gap in digital marketing. Namely, the following skills are most desired and most difficult to find at the same time:

Related Job

As we can see, brands experience the largest lack of digital marketing skills in analytics (37 percent) and mobile marketing (29 percent). These results are hardly surprising — data collection and analysis are the fastest growing areas not just in digital marketing, but in business overall, and mobile devices have become the primary source of information for most people.

Thus, it’s clear that polishing one’s skills in the fields of analytics, mobile and content marketing will increase both chances of getting hired and getting a higher salary.

Top In-Demand Digital Marketing Skills to Get You a Higher Paying Job

Having analyzed reports, devoted to companies’s overall success, we’ve come up with a list of skills, that are likely to turn into extra bucks in a digital marketer’s pocket.

Content Marketing

According to Content Marketing Institute research, Content Marketing has become a solid priority in companies’ marketing activities. 85% marketers consider content creation to be a factor, contributing to an organization’s overall success.

What is more, 70% of companies plan to produce more content in comparison to the past year, which makes content marketing skills even more valuable.

Mobile Video

According to Cisco Visual Networking Index mobile data traffic will increase sevenfold between 2016 and 2021 globally with video traffic accounting for 82 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021. HubSpot statistics also demonstrated that video content distribution is the top priority for digital marketers.

Such a significant growth proves that skills in video production and marketing across the most popular mobile platforms are likely to grow in demand in the near future.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still one of the most productive ways to reach out to the audience. Last year, the average ROI for email campaigns reached 4,300%, which, according to different data sources, translates into $43 earned dollars per $1 spent in the US (in the UK, 1 spent pound into 38 earned).

In addition to that, email is still the most popular content distribution channel.

Currently, 86% of professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes. Thus, the significance of email for digital marketing won’t change any time soon.

Marketing Automation

As in any business aspect, automation in marketing is becoming essential thanks to the reduced effort and improved ROI. What’s more, it helps digital marketers constantly expand the channels of communication and generate more leads of a higher quality, which is essentially one of the top goals of a good marketing strategy.

91% of users agree that marketing automation is very important to the overall success of their marketing across channels. Marketers using automation software generate 2X the number of leads than those using blast email software and are perceived by their peers to be 2X as effective at communicating. (source - Autopilot)

The most popular marketing automation software solutions to look into are Infusionsoft, Hubspot, Teradata, Unica and Eloqua. Free certification courses provided by the leading martech companies, such as Salesforce, Marketo, and Hubspot, could really help you master this skills and improve your competitiveness as a professional.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is one of the hottest spheres to be involved in right now. A dynamic and competitive industry, it constantly poses new challenges for professionals who want to secure a decent salary and stay relevant to the demand. That is why it is crucial to augment your expertise with the right skills.

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I have lots of "what ifs". Mainly because it's symptomatic of my mental condition I've thought about and considered most junctures in my life in the sense of "What if I opened door A rather than B." but for the most part I've concluded that if I didn't go that way and become alienated from the kind of environment and rules I grew up in, I wouldn't have been allowed to be my freest self.

Some of my "What ifs" include:

> What if I never left home at 13?> What if I never met or got with my first boyfriend?> What if I never left school before I did any exams?> What if I never left my first boyfriend at 18 and moved into a hostel?> What if I never lost my first job?> What if I never tried to take my own life?

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I would avoid talking to negative people about love issues if you want to hear positive or neutral words, since ultimately you know that the sentiments they will provide will be negative! Unless that's what you want to hear. Over time, I've learned that everyone thinks they have good intentions, but if they generally express themselves negatively, then that is what you are going to hear and will have to accept -- so best to avoid it if you don't want this!